I use this blog to gather information and thoughts about invention and innovation, the subjects I've been teaching at Stanford University Continuing Studies Program since 2005.
The current course is Principles of Invention and Innovation (Summer '17).
Our book "Scalable Innovation" is now available on Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Scalable-Innovation-Inventors-Entrepreneurs-Professionals/dp/1466590971/

Monday, December 26, 2011

Высоко сижу, далеко гляжу.

Years after becoming the dominant web search engine, Google remained extremely paranoid about Microsoft:

In 2004, prior to the IPO, the company was still hiding its success. “Google didn’t want Microsoft to know how big search was,” says Sacca. “And if you knew how many computers Google was running, you could do some back-of-the-envelope math and see how big an opportunity this was.” ( Steven Levy. 2011. In The Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives.)

This also helps appreciate how well Google is positioned relative to its business competitors. E.g. the company can easily detect a new hot startup through increased search queries. It allows them to evaluate and buy potentially competitors before anybody else have a shot at them - another information asymmetry provided by a dominant position within a large economic system.